In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Monday, September 24, 2012

Finished reading: The Elements of Moral Philosophy

I
have read a number of books on Ethics; it’s quite different from all others.
Though written for the students, it retains the philosophical tenor well. Not
only Rachels discusses important arguments put forward by the important schools
of moral philosophy, he contributes towards devising a new Moral Theory also.

Distinctively,
he equates Morality with Reason. “It is an offense against morality because it
is first an offense against reason.”

Have
a look at the scheme of the book, not the contents of the chapters. Rachels
starts each chapter with a relevant quotation which is enlightening. Copied are
these quotations also along with the title of the chapters:

1.
What is morality?

We
are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.

[Socrates,
as reported by Plato in the Republic (CA. 390 B.C.)]

2.
The challenge of cultural relativism

Morality
differs in every society, and is a convenient term for socially approved
habits.

[Ruth
Benedict, Patterns of Culture (1934)]

3.
Subjectivism in ethics

Take
any action allow’d to be vicious: Willful murder, for instance. Examine it in
all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence,
which you call vice . . . You can never find it, till you turn your
reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which
arises in you, toward this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ‘tis the
object of feeling, not reason.

[David
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1740)]

4.
Does morality depend on religion?

The
Good consists in always doing what God wills at any particular moment.

[Emil
Brunner, The Divine Imperative (1947)]

I
respect deities. I do not rely upon them.

[Musashi
Miyamoto, At Ichijqji Temple (1608)]

5.
Psychological egoism

But
the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators
has succeeded.

[Edmund
Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)]

6.
Ethical egoism

The
achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose.

[Ayn
Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (1961)]

7.
The utilitarian approach

Given
our present perspective, it is amazing that Christian ethics down through the
centuries could have accepted almost unanimously the sententious doctrine that
“the end does not justify the means.” We have to ask now, “If the end does not
justify the means, what does?” The answer is, obviously, “Nothing!”

[Joseph
Fletcher, Moral Responsibility (1967)]

8.
The debate over utilitarianism

The
utilitarian doctrine is that happiness is desirable, and the only thing
desirable, as an end; all other things being desirable as means to that end.

[John
Stuart Mills, Utilitarianism (1861)]

Man
does not strive after happiness; only the Englishman does that.

[Friedrich
Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1889)]

9.
Are there absolute moral rules?

For
many who have never heard of philosophy, let alone of Kant, morality is roughly
what Kant said it was.

[Alasdair
MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (1966)]

10.
Kant and respect for persons

Are
there any who would not admire man?

[Giovanni
Pico Della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)]

11.
The idea of a social contract

The
passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as
are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain
them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be
drawn to agreement. These articles, are they, which otherwise are called the Laws
of Nature.

[Thomas
Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)]

12.
Feminism and the ethics of care

But
it is obvious that the values of women differ very often from the values which
have been made by the other sex; naturally, this is so. Yet it is the masculine
values that prevail.

[Virginian
Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)]

13.
The ethics of virtue

The
concepts of obligation, and duty – moral obligation and moral
duty, that is to say – and what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral
sense of “ought,” to be jettisoned . . . It would be a great improvement if,
instead of “morally wrong,” one always named a genus such as “untruthful,”
“unjust.”

[G.
E. M. Anscombe, Modern Moral Philosophy (1958)]

14.
What would a satisfactory moral theory be like?

Some
people believe that there cannot be progress in Ethics, since everything has
already been said . . . I believe the opposite . . . Compared with the other
sciences, Non-Religious Ethics is the youngest and least advanced.

[Derek
Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984)]

All
in all, it’s a worth-reading book (232 pages).

And
here are the last lines by Rachels:

“As
the Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit has observed, the earth will remain
habitable for another billion years, and civilization is now only a few
thousand years old. If we do not destroy ourselves, moral philosophy, along
with all the other human inquiries, may yet have a long way to go.”

Rachels
has published another book: The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral
Philosophy (1999).

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.